


Spark Plug

by Lemur710



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: M/M, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-23 02:57:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17072177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lemur710/pseuds/Lemur710
Summary: Discharged (honorably) and disillusioned (less honorably), veteran Goodnight Robicheaux works as a small-town mechanic. One warm, summer night, a stranded stranger walks through the door in need of help.





	Spark Plug

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fontainebleau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fontainebleau/gifts).



> 2018 Magnificent 7 Secret Santa gift for Fontainebleau. I tried to bring you some Billy/Good modern AU fun. I hope you enjoy. Happy holidays!  
> Also: I know precious little about automotive repair, so forgive any inaccuracies. It's all metaphor, baby.

If he closed his eyes, the heat wasn’t all that different from Haiti.

Goodnight Robicheaux supposed, at the end of his life, he might be considered a connoisseur of humid climes, of the sort of damp-wet-hot that came from lush green places and too much sun. He could picture himself smoking on the wraparound porch of some old country home, a rocking chair squeaking beneath him as he categorized the steamy, cicada-chirped bayous of Louisiana versus the monsoon burn of Thailand in June. Not that he’d been to Thailand yet, not by a long shot. The front desk of Artie’s Tire, Engine & Body in Virginia felt far away from Louisiana, let alone the mysterious Orient. The rattling fluorescent lights overhead had a way of making Goody’s dreams feel even farther.

He let out a yawn. His fingers clicked over computer keys, entering numbers that had stopped being conscious about 10 forms ago. The TV played conservative news on mute, the newscaster’s lies popping up in broken captioning, and a modern country song played staticky through the only speaker in the ceiling that wasn’t busted, the one right over Goody’s head. The man sang about the “good old U.S. of A.” Goody remembered another soldier singing it in the barracks before they’d been shipped out. That kind of talk never did speak to him; he’d enlisted to pay for college. Turns out, college didn’t really speak to him either, after. Too many people and too much movement for a man prone to panic attacks every time a car backfired. 

“You got the place?” AJ asked, pulling shut the door to the main office. She pulled on a denim jacket over her oil-stained denim shirt. 

“I certainly do,” Goody replied. “You go on now and go home to your lady love.”

AJ snorted. “Good night, Goodnight.” She chuckled and walked out the glass front doors into the parking lot. Her truck rumbled off moments later.

Goody switched off the TV and the radio. He preferred the silence, even if it wasn’t really silence. Crickets chirped outside the big glass windows and Goody’s fingers tapped over the computer keys. Cars passed along the road every 20 minutes or so. But otherwise, it was darkness beyond the body shop’s walls.

It was two minutes before closing when Goody saw someone emerge from the shadows into the parking lot’s harsh orange pool of fluorescents. A man striding his way, his body a fine trim figure in black, dark hair draping his face, and cigarette smoke trailing from him like steam from an engine. He was about the most beautiful thing Goody had ever seen, in any climate.

The man tugged open the door, ignoring the “No Smoking” sign. The bell dinged over his head. “You still open?”

“You have an open door in your hand,” Goody replied, though truthfully it was just after closing. “What automotive needs do you have tonight?”

The man stared at him a moment; it was a look Goody was used to for the most part. During his short-lived time at the university, a professor had once told him, “You do have a distinctive way of expressing yourself.” That blank stare didn’t usually come from such a handsome face, though, nor such striking eyes.

“My car broke down a few miles ahead,” the man answered.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Don’t know. Wouldn’t need your help if I did.”

“Touche’.” Goody stepped round the counter, giving a charming smile. “And would you look at that? Closing time. That means I can give you my full and undivided attention. Goodnight’s the name. Goodnight Robicheaux. What should I call you?”

The man looked at him through fallen wisps of black hair. The edge of his mouth curled in a curious almost-smile. “Billy Rocks,” he said at last.

Goody extended his hand. “Good to meet you, Billy Rocks.”

Goodnight turned off the lights and locked the door before he and Billy climbed into his old pick-up truck. AJ and her wife sometimes went into town for late-night pie and Goody didn’t want her getting upset to see the shop open after hours.

The night air was still and stagnant, the only breeze made by the rolled-down windows, bringing the scent of manure and the cow fields with it. The road crunched beneath Goody’s tires. Billy took a long drag on his cigarette, the red end lighting up his cheekbones as it burned to the filter.

“Where you from?” Goody asked.

Billy slowly blew out a grey plume of smoke. “New Jersey,” he replied.

Goody cracked a smile and heard it as the rebuke it rightfully was. “Always happy to meet a man from the north,” he said.

Goody reached down to tug out the ashtray and offered it to Billy. He loved that about this old truck; he might have kept the truck running just to keep that good, old-fashioned ashtray. Billy nodded and stubbed out his cigarette. Then, he breathed out, releasing the last lungful of smoke into the summer night. _Good god but he’s a pretty thing_ , Goody noted, struggling to keep his eyes on the road. 

“Tell me about this car of yours.”

“Mercury Cougar. 1971.”

“Woo.” Goody couldn’t keep the admiration out of his voice. “I like the sound of that. Where’d you come across that?”

Billy glanced at him, a look as sharp as a dagger, and Goody didn’t suppose he was going to get much more out of him. It bothered him less than he thought it should. Goody was used to talking more than pretty much everybody, but he did enjoy a good exchange of conversation. Maybe it was that Billy Rocks was so very easy on the eyes, or maybe it was that his silence felt like control, like a man containing a tidal wave, rather than the product of an empty mind. Either way, Goody contentedly filled this silence as he filled any other.

“AJ’s had her shop out here for close on 40 years. It was her daddy’s before it was hers, Artie Sr. named the place,” Goody said, “but I never knew him. Artie Jr.—AJ, you see? There’s somethin’ about a man who names his firstborn after himself, son or daughter. AJ hired me six months ago since I got discharged. I was hitchhiking and ran out of money. I worked with vehicles in the Army and my unit had all those beat-up old beauties. All these new cars, everything’s computers. I can do it, but doesn’t get my blood pumping like oil and gears.”

Just then, his headlights caught on the burgundy frame of a 1971 Mercury Cougar. Goody actually felt arousal trickle through him as he parked behind it. “Oh, would you look at that?” he breathed. “You got yourself a beautiful body, Mr. Rocks. Your car, too.” Goody cast him a wink and ducked out of the truck, adrenaline pumping, giddy at his own daring.

Billy silently joined him in the white glow of the headlights as Goody popped the hood. “It’s the spark plugs holding you up,” Goody said, after a minute’s investigation. “Lucky for you, I anticipated that.” He gave Billy a flashlight. The man didn’t need any instruction—he stayed right with Goody, shining the light on his hands as he gathered his supplies from the bed of his truck, as he worked off the old parts and readied the new, narrating his action all the while. For all he knew, Billy might want to fix these himself next time.

It was a wet night, like the kind he remembered from Haiti. One of those hot nights where darkness didn’t relieve much the day’s heat. It still felt like standing in a sauna. Sweat slid down Goody’s temples from beneath his hair, pooled and cooled in the hollow of his throat. As he worked, he talked about the heady feel of good old grease under your fingers, and what his daddy used to say about “hard work and a hard head.” Goody talked about his mom and the lemonade and teacakes she made back in the day. “She was a woman from another time,” he said. “A time when women wore petticoats and hosted salons on the porch in July and carried hat pins long enough to kill a man if his hands went where they shouldn’t.”

Billy huffed a laugh. It sounded like victory to Goody’s ears.

“You like that?” Goody asked him, grinning.

“I think I’d like her.”

“Your kind of woman, huh?”

Behind the flashlight, dark eyes slid down Goodnight’s sweaty chest, as hot as a Louisiana sunrise in August. “I didn’t say that,” Billy replied.

Goodnight nodded, a burn that had nothing to do with the weather sizzling across his skin. “I think we understand each other.” He smiled.

The next time Billy Rocks turned the ignition, his engine growled to life, vibrating through Goody’s palms. He slapped the hood shut and looked to the gorgeous driver behind the wheel. 

“That sounds all right to me,” he said, sauntering over to lean his hip against the door by Billy’s window. He liked the way Billy’s gaze was slow to rise from his belt buckle. “Looks like you’re back on your way. Unless you have more business in town.”

Billy was silent a moment, a silence weightier than all his others. Then, he pushed open the door, pushing Goody away in the process, and closed it behind him. He leaned against the rumbling, humming car. “What do I owe you?”

Goody had a dozen dirty answers ready for that question, but every one of them halted in his throat. His heart thumped. The glimmer of Billy’s eyes, the slope of his lips, the sharp angle of his cheekbones, the low timbre of his voice…they settled in Goodnight and felt like...something. Like something he’d been missing, craving. Cool lemonade on a hot summer night. A spark plug clicked back into place in the engine of his life. “Nothing,” he said, honestly, openly. “I’m just glad to have met you, Billy Rocks.”

Billy ignited another cigarette, inspecting Goodnight over the flame. “About that,” he said. “You’ve been at the shop for six months?”

“That’s right.”

“You like it?”

“It’s good enough for what it is. Why do you ask?”

“Thing is, this car is tricky. This is the second time I’ve had to fix something on it since I...acquired it,” Billy explained, face shadowed beneath his hair. “I could use a mechanic traveling with me. One that knows these old engines.”

Goody’s grin felt wild. “Are you suggesting I take to the road with a man I only just met?”

Billy nodded, that almost-smile sliding across his lips again. 

“Where are you headed?”

Billy’s eyes shined in the darkness. The hum of cicadas filled the air. “Does it matter?” 

“No,” Goody said. “No, it doesn’t.”

_______

The next morning, Artie Jr. drove into work just as she’d done since she was 19 years old. The shop was closed, locked up tight and secure, and taped to the door was a note.

**“AJ – I’ve received an offer I can’t refuse, and wouldn’t if I could. I’ve left in the night. I leave you my sincerest gratitude for your kindness, and the coffee mug I borrowed from you last week. My best to you and your lady love. May you know nothing but joy and plenty.**

**Farewell, Goodnight Robicheaux**

**P.S. I took $65.67 from the till, as this would have been my earnings for the days I worked this week. I hope this will seem fair, but I will not fault you if you choose to notify the authorities.”**

AJ shook her head and tossed the note in the bin. Wasn’t the first time one of her charity cases had taken off in the night and at least Goodnight was right about what was owed him. He’d done good work and she’d miss him, which was more than she could say for a lot of the rattled veterans, ex-cons and would-be bikers she took in. Besides, calling the police wouldn’t do a damn thing.

 _Goodnight Robicheaux_ , AJ thought with a snort. 

She knew a fake name when she heard one.


End file.
